After reading the latest article on which brand of headphones are best, I began to wonder if in-ear headphones are a thing of the past. I’m fairly new to Dj’ing, and have yet to buy anything as far as headphones are concerned and am curious what y’all think. What is most important to me personally is having a pair of in ear or regular headphones that will either completely eliminate or minimize the damage dealt to my hearing once I start to work in the 110 + Decibel range while at the same time giving me decent sound quality
sure in ears have the advantage of size and an isolation that most standard ones will not achieve, however, most dj headphones are not built to entirely close anyway.
Personally I don`t like the feel of in-ears and the risk to blow your ears with them is quite high too
Yeah, the chance of blowing out your ears is a big risk with in-ears… Personally I wear earplugs whenever I play in places that are louder then about 100dB, which of course is any club. I’m also an audio engineer so my ears are my livelihood in my business. I definitely recommend a good set of cans rather then the in-ears…
how do you blow your ears with in ears? i dont get it. blowing means damaging? how does an in-ear damage more than another headphone at the same volume?
the sound levels are more concentrated. sound is pushed directly into the ear canal.
in ear monitoring is really about if you like it or not. the big issue that i find is that you are tethered to the mixer (or soundcard). with headphones you pull them off and you are free. so with in ears, you have to unplug something. which some people dont mind. a guy i know named greg chin (dj stryke) uses a high end pair of m audios and he loves them.
i would recommend buying an entry pair and seeing how you like them. and then buy a high end if you do. m audio has a couple pairs or like 100 USD.
After fucking around with various headphones for many years, I would say for djing you can’t beat a set of Sennheiser HD25s but for production and general ‘cross between a high end monitoring systen and a sofa for your ears’ type of thing you want to be looking at the Beyerdynamic DT770s or above.
Blowing out your ears deals with SPL levels in your ear canal. With in-ears it’s closer and more concentrated since, like Alex Laine said, it’s pumping the sound waves directly into your ear canal. The only way to truely protect your hearing is to wear ear plugs in a noisy environment, which is what I do. While in-ear monitors can isolate your ears from outside sources very well, here’s the kicker… With either in-ear or cans, I still have to turn them up loud enough to match the volume of the speakers that are pumping in your other ear in order to beatmatch properly. In a club, that means LOUD. Now at this point with in-ears, I have to deal with that volume the entire time, but with cans, I can pop in my earplugs and it brings both volumes down a notch and keeps them even! Badabing! I can hear properly and I’m not damaging my ears.
Mind you I already have minor tinitis (aka permanent ringing in my ears) from working in clubs, and I’m not trying to make it any worse!
In-ear monitors work very well for musicians as they are wearing both of them the entire time, and they can adjust that volume however they want as they isolate the user’s ears from the outside noise as well. This isn’t as true for a DJ as we are taking them off, putting them on, and taking them off again, so we have to deal with possibly damaging sound levels a different way.
Of course this is just my opinion backed by some facts of life. If you like in-ears, by all means use them. I have before and they do work very well, I just like my hearing and know myself, and I’d probably hurt my hearing if I used them too much.
Interesting, so you guys wear earplugs in the club? Biggest venue I’ve played was a small club (a few hundred people maybe, I can’t judge size very well), would you recommend wearing earplugs for even a venue that small? I want to protect my ears before I get much of a chance to damage them.
in ear headphones are terrible for your ears. it’s a good way to shoot your hearing, especially for djs and musicians who are often exposed to loud environments and listen to music more often than most people.
In-ear monitors are actually very safe for your ears according to a medical study by Vanderbilt University. This is because they require lower volume to overcome excess ambient noise. One of the leading IEM companies, Etymotic Research, is actually a hearing aid company that consists of Audiologists and Scientists.
Well I wear them depending on the venue and how loud it is. Doesn’t really matter on size of the club, more on how loud they keep their system. I’m very particular on my hearing (as I said, my ears are my career), so I carry a dB meter with me, if it’s over about 95-100dB my earplugs go in. Mind you most clubs operate at about 115-120+ minimum… So yes, I wear them a lot at gigs.
Hearing damage is a sad thing. Since I was a child I’ve had conductive hearing loss in my right ear causing me to loose a large percentage of hearing in lower mid range (around 500hz-1.2k) So that along with all of the clubbing/djing damage I’ve done the past years kinda made me gave up and not wanna spin at parties any more. But I’ve heard it both ways. One audiologist suggested that I gave up using headphones and going to concerts all together. Another told me to consider getting custom molds of my ear so i can use custom earplugs to attenuate the noise levels along with custom fitted IEMs to allow me to mix with at lower volumes. The second audiologist understood my needs and desires, and even though IEMs can have higher more focused SPL; a proper fitted iem can block a much higher percentage of noise than a traditional circumaural style headphone. My choice; avoid the club scene. However, I will need the earplugs with my job…
i find this hard too believe. when i take the skytrain just to town and wear my ipod buds i have to turn up the volume atleast 10% more than when I’m wearing my studiophones to compensate for the outside noise.
That’s just outside walking around and taking the skytrain, im sure the difference is even more noticable for anybody silly enough to use earbuds for headphone cueing at a club.
Keep in mind that iPod earbuds are very cheap and do not block ambient noise at all, whereas in-ear monitors made by the likes of Shure and Bose are designed to block all ambient noise. Huge difference between the two.
Ask Tristan from twisted records what happens after 10 years of djing with no earplugs. he has tinnitus in his right ear and cant dj any more, or produce properly.
You can’t really compare iPod buds to studio headphones. From wat I gather we are talking about high quality canal in ear buds yes? Iv recently bought a pairof sennie cx6’s in ear phones and am loving them to death. Much better sound than my sennie headphones. I think it’s all about personal preference but I suggest picking up a pair of decent in ears and see how you like em.
And if you don’t like them for mixing you have a nice pair for listening to your iPod or whatever
